At the southern foot of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, thirteen kilometers northwest of Lijiang, sits Yufeng Monastery. Known in Tibetan as Kalashicongfeilin, this Karma Kagyu temple rests in a landscape of pine groves and cold mountain springs. Built in 1700 and expanded in 1756, the monastery once spanned nine courtyards. Today, three courtyards, the gate tower, and the main hall remain.

The architecture merges Han Chinese, Tibetan, Taoist, and Naxi Dongba styles into a low-profile quadrangle. Inside the main hall, which measures 16.3 meters wide and 12.6 meters deep, four massive pillars feature relief carvings of golden coiled dragons. Above, an octagonal caisson ceiling displays Buddhist figures painted in the Thangka style. A wooden plaque inscribed "Cang Zhi Yin Yu" by Kong Jixin, a descendant of Confucius who served as Lijiang’s prefect, hangs overhead.

Human hands have shaped this sanctuary for centuries. In the late fifteenth century, during the Ming Dynasty, the eighth Karmapa planted a camellia tree here. Later, the tenth Karmapa, Choying Dorje, painted murals on these walls. In the northern courtyard, the ancient camellia still grows. Monks trained its branches across trellises, creating a fifty-six-square-meter canopy that stands just two to three meters high. This "King of Camellias" is a living graft of two varieties: "Lion's Head" and "Early Peach Red." From February to May, the tree blooms in twenty successive waves, producing twenty thousand red flowers. The blossoms, some seventeen centimeters wide, brush against the shoulders of those who walk beneath them.

To the north, the Ten-Li-Fragrance Courtyard holds two Yunnan michelia trees over two hundred and thirty years old. Their sweet, heavy scent fills the mountain air, mixing with the sound of wind through the pines. Yufeng Monastery remains a quiet monument where diverse cultures, beliefs, and generations of caretakers meet under the shadow of the snow peak.